How did you solve the Android excess-notification problem?

Happy New Year! Let's all be helpful together, as a well-honed team.
Working together, we can solve even the toughest Android issues.

Like excess notifications.

Dunno about you, but I get so many notifications that I'm at risk of
ignoring them - which defeats the purpose of notifications after all.

Sometimes I get asked if a newly installed app should get notifications,
where I tell it NO if it's something like a weather app or browser.

But in other cases, like maps or SMS or calendars, you kind of want to get
"some" notifications (but not silly notifications like "you haven't used
this app in a while" notifications - which - I do get at times).

Sure, I added a one-tap shortcut to the notification log activity and
another to the notification history activity (why they're extremely
different reports on my Android 13 Galaxy is beyond my comprehension).

But even with shortcuts, I still have to wade through a gazillion
notifications to see which are important - most of which - are not.

Back to the question at hand to resolve in 2025...

It's my premise that too much of crying wolf doesn't really help.
So I'd like to cut down on notifications to the absolute essentials.

But how?

How do YOU cut down on the notifications to the bare essentials?
What *kinds* of notifications are there, anyway, that we need to solve?

#1. Status Bar Notifications:
#2. Notification Drawer Notifications:
#3. Heads-Up Notifications:
#4. Lock Screen Notifications:
#5. App Icon Badges:
#6. Notification Channels:
# ?
--
Note I just installed this app, which at least tells me, in words, what #1
status-bar notifications are - but that only covers the status bar.
Status bar (only) Voice notifications: (enable in Android 13 settings)
<https://github.com/pilot51/voicenotify/>
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pilot51.voicenotify>
<https://f-droid.org/packages/com.pilot51.voicenotify/>

Marion <marion@facts.com> wrote:

> Dunno about you, but I get so many notifications that I'm at risk of
> ignoring them - which defeats the purpose of notifications after all.

Go into the settings of your apps to see if they have their own
notification settings, like on what types of alerts they will notify.

Go into Android settings -> General -> Notifications, and decide which
apps are allowed to notify. Just because an app wants to notify doesn't
mean you have to grant it permission to notify.

On 2025-01-14 22:45, VanguardLH wrote:
> Marion <marion@facts.com> wrote:
>
>> Dunno about you, but I get so many notifications that I'm at risk of
>> ignoring them - which defeats the purpose of notifications after all.
>
> Go into the settings of your apps to see if they have their own
> notification settings, like on what types of alerts they will notify.
>
> Go into Android settings -> General -> Notifications, and decide which
> apps are allowed to notify. Just because an app wants to notify doesn't
> mean you have to grant it permission to notify.

Slide to the side the notification you do not like; you may see a cog
wheel for configuration, then block that type of notification.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 1/14/25 2:55 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
>On 2025-01-14 22:45, VanguardLH wrote:
>> Marion <marion@facts.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dunno about you, but I get so many notifications that I'm at risk of
>>> ignoring them - which defeats the purpose of notifications after all.
>>
>> Go into the settings of your apps to see if they have their own
>> notification settings, like on what types of alerts they will notify.
>>
>> Go into Android settings -> General -> Notifications, and decide which
>> apps are allowed to notify. Just because an app wants to notify doesn't
>> mean you have to grant it permission to notify.
>
>Slide to the side the notification you do not like; you may see a cog
>wheel for configuration, then block that type of notification.

On most of my Android toys including this Amazon Fire Tablet I can long
press an app on the home screen, touch "i" or "info", and turn off the
notification switch on the resulting app screen...

Arlen,

> So I'd like to cut down on notifications to the absolute essentials.
>
> But how?

Start with realizing that you are fully at the mercy of whomever is sending
those notifications. The app decides the frequency as well as the class of
them. If the app itself doesn't allow you to adjust either/both than there
is nothing you can do - other than to hope that your OS has a setting to
deal with it, something you seem to have indicated you already looked at.

And thats assuming you are talking about the usefullnes of a certain class
of notifications, and not the usefullness (to you) of the contents of
notifications within a certain class.

And I think you can imagine the problem with blocking a certain class of
notifications because you don't like the, for example, "heads-up"
notifcations of one specific app. :-|

Have you already looked in the specific apps settings ?

And perhaps someone already wrote a "notification firewall". You could do
worse than to do a websearch for it.

> (but not silly notifications like "you haven't used this app in a while"
> notifications - which - I do get at times)

Those are generated by the OS. I would suggest you to look in the
OS-specific settings.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On 14.01.25 22:36, Marion wrote:
> How did you solve the Android excess-notification problem?

I do not solve problems I do not have.

> Happy New Year! Let's all be helpful together, as a well-honed team.
> Working together, we can solve even the toughest Android issues.

Myx goodness! How woke!

> Like excess notifications.

There is no such thing. Only a couple of stupid users.

Arlen, you are an idiot of the worst kind.

--
"Roma locuta, causa finita." (Augustinus)